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Two Killed in Las Vegas Courthouse

LAS VEGAS — A man clad in black opened fire in the federal courthouse lobby here on Monday, killing a security officer and wounding a deputy United States marshal before he was fatally shot by federal officers as he fled.

The gunman was identified by a Las Vegas Police Department official as Johnny L. Wicks, 66. Mr. Wicks had filed a complaint against the Social Security Administration in 2008 over a reduction in his benefit, according to the police official, who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak publicly, but it was not known whether that played a role in the shooting.

“At this point, we believe it was a lone gunman, a criminal act, not a terrorist act,” Special Agent Joseph Dickey of the F.B.I. said five hours after the shooting, which occurred about 8 a.m. and rocked the city’s downtown. “We are following up on this to determine why this man did what he did today.”

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Law enforcement personnel surrounded the Lloyd D. George Federal Courthouse in Las Vegas on Monday after the shooting.Credit
Isaac Brekken/Associated Press

According to Agent Dickey, the gunman entered the Lloyd D. George Federal Courthouse, about five miles north of the Strip, pulled a shotgun from underneath his jacket and began firing indiscriminately from outside the security area where visitors and their belongings pass through metal detectors and X-ray machines.

Struck in the chest was Stanley W. Cooper, 65, who had retired after 26 years with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and worked as a courthouse security officer since 1994. He died instantly. A 48-year-old deputy United States marshal whose identity has not been released was shot in the upper arm and hospitalized in good condition. He has spoken to investigators, the agent said.

Seven federal marshals and other courthouse security personnel chased the gunman from the courthouse, Agent Dickey said. The man was shot in the head and died on the sidewalk in front of a historic school that has been converted into an office building.

Henrietta Moss, 43, was walking to work at a pawnshop in the area when she heard the noise.

“It was, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, and it went on,” said Ms. Moss, whose description comports with a video, posted on YouTube, taken from a few blocks away on which about 20 shots are heard. “I couldn’t see anything, but you knew that something bad was going down.”

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Workers were moved outside the courthouse after the incident. Other buildings in the downtown area were also evacuated.Credit
Paul Sakuma/Associated Press

Agent Dickey would not say how many people were in the lobby of the courthouse when the shooting occurred, but Senator John Ensign, a Republican who has an office in the nine-story building, said he spoke with a woman who had been just passed through the security checkpoint when Mr. Wicks opened fire.

“She told me that had she not been behind a pillar, she would have been killed,” Mr. Ensign said.

The senator said that neither he nor Senator Harry Reid, a Democrat who is the majority leader and who also has offices in the building, had received any credible threats recently. Nor were there any recent threats to the courthouse, Agent Dickey said.

For several hours after the shooting, local television stations broadcast what turned out to be false reports of other gunmen on the loose, which led to evacuations in the commercial area surrounding the courthouse.

Many businesses, including Jennifer Martin Realty, two blocks away, locked their doors out of fear.

“We heard in the news that there were four gunmen and they had shot one of them,” said Katherine Vermillion, who handles administrative work at the real estate firm. “I saw six police cars outside and a lot of activity, and we didn’t know what was going on.”

Joseph Berger contributed reporting from New York.

A version of this article appears in print on January 5, 2010, on page A11 of the New York edition with the headline: 2 Are Dead After Shootout At Las Vegas Courthouse. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe